Okay.
EAO, you are not dealing with reality here.
In 1978, Iran was ruled by a man that was essentually a US puppet.........and yes, I know all about the Shah and SAVAK........support of the Shah was not exactly one of the shining moments in US foreign policy....
Nonetheless, in 1978, the USA knew exactly what would happen with any nuclear reactor or technology, they were in on the ground floor. There is absolutely NO WAY the technology would have been used to create weapons, the US would have shut them down. Iran had no major enemies........with US backing it need not fear anyone, and the Shah was not spouting off about wiping anyone off the map.
If Iran was developing nuclear weapons, do you think they would do it a public square in Tehran? Your claim that they have no nuclear weapons program is naive in the extreme, to say the very least.
Iran is now ruled by Islamist nut-cases. Now you could easily make a case, which I would even agree with, that this is largely the fault of American realpolitic.........however, the leaders of Iran have stated their wish to "wipe Israel off the map", the Mullahs have stated the need for a Muslim nuclear weapon, and that a nuclear war withIsrael would destroy Israel, but leave much of the larger Muslim world intact.
The proxy army of Iran (Hezbollah) seeks to commit genocide against all Jews, attacking Jews not aligned with Israel in places as far away as Argentina.
The threat to Israel of any POSSIBLE nuclear program is immense.
Israel has everyright to defend herself.
And she will.
The sooner, the better.
Iran will not be permitted a nuclear reactor. Nor should she be.
Weren't you saying the same thing about Iraq just five years ago? Obviously you are still listening to the same sources. What makes you believe that the same sources which lied about Iraq then aren't lying about Iran now? You keep believing the same liars over and over, each time... believing, that well maybe they lied to me the last time, but maybe this time they aren't lying. This time its different right "Charlie Brown"?
Who is being naive? I'm not the one believing people with a proven track record of starting wars based on lies. What makes you so certain that the people who lied about the Iraq's WMDs are now telling the truth about Iran?
If there is a lesson to be learned from the lynch mob mentality which led to the Iraq war, its that until speculation is backed up by evidence, is just speculation.
If you have some proof that Iran has a nuclear weapons program, I'd like to see it. Otherwise admit you have no proof and that you and the people you listen to are speculating about what Iran might have.
I agree that Israel has a right to defend itself, but no country including Israel has a right to start unprovoked wars. Attacking another country before being attacked or even before proving the existance of threat is starting an unprovoked war. Iraq for example did not attack the US and was never proven to be a threat. The US started an unprovoked war with Iraq and gullible people like you supported that war crime. As a result hundreds of thousands of innocent people lost their lives including thousands of US servicemen and women.
A recent Senate intelligence committee report basically stated that the Americans were manipulated into supported an unprovoked attack on Iraq:
The selling of the war on Iraq
Sunday, June 08, 2008
Is it really true, as so many bumper stickers in this blue state argue, that "Bush lied -- people died"? An unusually rancorous report released last week by the Intelligence Senate Committee provides strong support for the idea that
the president and his top advisers intentionally misled the American public in order to make a case for attacking Iraq.
They did so, it is apparent, by focusing on and embellishing the items that suggested Saddam Hussein's government was up to no good, and by ignoring or failing to explore evidence to the contrary. Isolated references to "aluminum tubes," for instance, helped lead the president to declare in a 2002 speech, "We cannot wait for the final proof -- the smoking gun -- that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud."
Vice President Dick Cheney and then-defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld were even more definitive. Cheney insisted in 2002 that America had "irrefutable evidence" that Hussein had restarted his nuclear weapons program and was seeking foreign sources of uranium that could be enriched and used in a nuclear bomb. In fact, intelligence sources hadn't reached any such firm conclusion.
And as a committee insider noted, in at least one case, when Rumsfeld testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee in 2002, he said something that he knew to be "flat-out wrong." Rumsfeld had said that, of the Iraqi bomb-making facilities that had been identified by intelligence sources, "a good many are underground and deeply buried," making them invulnerable to an airstrike. But, in fact, there was no such understanding, and certainly no identified underground bomb-making sites...
http://www.oregonlive.com/editorials/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/editorial/121279834266280.xml&coll=7
Now you support a similar war against Iran based on similar justifications by the same sources. Who's being naive C?
"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."
Regarding Ahmadinejad's quote about "wiping Israel off the map"... That quote was a mistranslation quoted out of context... again by the same sources which claimed Iraq had WMD stockpiles and was behind 9/11. That's not what Ahmadinejad said.
Did Ahmadinejad really threaten to "wipe Israel off the map" or is this phrase just another jingoistic brand slogan for selling the next war in the Middle East?
The devil is in the detail, wiping Israel off the map suggests a physical genocidal assault, a literal population relocation or elimination akin to what the Nazis did. According to numerous different translations, Ahmadinejad never used the word "map," instead his statement was in the context of time and applied to the Zionist regime occupying Jerusalem. Ahmadinejad was expressing his future hope that the Zionist regime in Israel would fall, not that Iran was going to physically annex the country and its population.
To claim Ahmadinejad has issued a rallying cry to ethnically cleanse Israel is akin to saying that Churchill wanted to murder all Germans when he stated his desire to crush the Nazis. This is about the demise of a corrupt occupying power, not the deaths of millions of innocent people.
The Guardian's Jonathan Steele cites four different translations, from professors to the BBC to the New York Times and even pro-Israel news outlets, in none of those translations is the word "map" used. The closest translation to what the Iranian President actually said is, "The regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time," or a narrow relative thereof. In no version is the word "map" used or a context of mass genocide or hostile military action even hinted at.
The acceptance of the word "map" seemingly originated with the New York Times, who later had to back away from this false translation. The BBC also wrongly used the word and, in comments to Steele, later accepted their mistake but refused to issue a retraction.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/january2007/260107offthemap.htm
Ahmadinejad delivered that speech in Farsi. I've read several possible translations and my research has leads me to believe the most accurate translation is that Ahmadinejad called for an end to the Zionist state of Israel in much the same way many people called for an end to the Apartheid regime of South Africa. Those people were not advocating genocide of white South Africans but elimination of race based entitlement and discrimination. The Zionist state of Israel is a state where rights and privileges are based on religion rather than race like Apartheid. But the resulting oppression and injustice is the same. Ahmadinejad's statement was a call for a more fair and just system of governance in the holylands, not genocide.
That said, no doubt elements exist within communities ethnically cleansed from Palestine by Israel which would favor Jewish genocide. I would agree that those elements make up a signicant part of Hamas and Hezbollah. I expect that those elements if given a chance would treat Israeli citizens in much the same way as Israel has treated them. But Iran's government has never advocated Jewish genocide despite misperceptions and misinformation to contrary. In fact Iran is tolerant of Jews and even has a thriving Jewish community.
So basically it comes down to who are you going to believe? CNN and FoxNews which have a track record of misinformation and spin, or the IAEA and the UN who say they have no evidence that Iran has a nuclear weapons program.
The fact is Iran's known nuclear research is 100% peaceful. It is possible that Iran has a clandestine nuclear weapons program. But the evidence suggests that Iran has focused on mass producing modern conventional weapons rather than nukes. No doubt Iran is hostile to Israel and supportive of Isael's adversaries. But Iran doesn't have to arm Israel's adversaries directly. Iran mass produces RPGs and MANPADs and sells these weapons to arms merchants who in turn sell them to Israel's adversaries who recieve funding from Iran.
Iran doesn't need a nuclear deterrent. Israel is a small country. Iran will soon have the ability to destroy Israel with conventional weapons alone. Both Israel and the US are well aware that Iran will soon have that conventional weapon capability and that is their real target, not Iran's non-existant nuclear weapons. But they are selling their war plans to the gullible, believing that people in general are stupid. Colpy's post above indicates they may be right.
